Webb House Museum

211 Main St, Wethersfield, CT 06109, USA

Connecticut

state

CT - Hartford

county

CT - Hartford

city

MUSEUM

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The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, located in Wethersfield, Connecticut, is owned and operated by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in Connecticut. The museum features three 18th-century houses that sit on their original sites in the center of Old Wethersfield: the 1752 Joseph Webb House, the 1769 Silas Deane House and the 1789 Isaac Stevens House. The first two houses are listed as National Historic Landmarks and the last home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut.

SITE FEATURES

Surviving Structures

On this site...

Judah Wright framed the house in 1752 for Joseph Webb. The 3+1⁄2-story house was designed with a large gambrel roof that provides extra storage space. Webb was a successful merchant who had ships trading in the West Indies and ran a local store; he married Mehitabel Nott and had six children before his death at age 34. The executor of the estate was Silas Deane, who assisted Mrs. Webb financially and emotionally. Deane later married her and built a house next door. Joseph Webb Jr. was 12 at the time of his father's death, and he inherited the house. Joseph Webb Jr. was also a successful merchant. He married Abigail Chester in 1774, and the couple remained in the house; they became well-known hosts and their house was nicknamed "Hospitality Hall".

HOME

EST. 1752

The house's fame stems from George Washington's five night stay there, where he planned the Siege of Yorktown with French general Comte de Rochambeau. Smithsonian magazine writer Howard Hugh suggests that the red wool flock wallpaper in the bedchamber where Washington slept was hung in anticipation of the general's arrival.

Webb sold the house in 1790 and it passed through different owners until it was purchased by Judge Martin Welles around 1820.